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Annette Laing

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“So how do I make my little boy as clever as you are?” The question came out of nowhere. We were teenage waitresses in a Wimpy hamburger joint in a working-class town in England, taking our break squeezed together in a little red naugahyde booth, chowing down on the greasy burgers the management allowed as afternoon snacks. I paused, mid-bite, and turned to look at my co-worker. She wasn’t mocking me, as some of the girls might have. After all, I was a Scot, the only kid who worked in the café who didn’t come from a Cockney home, and, even more awkward, the only one who had any hope at all of...

Did you know that motherhood is a major cause of the recession? Most families’ experience of the recession isn’t destitution, according to an article in today’s New York Times : Rather, there are many families who are cutting back and learning to live on less. Hardly a controversial proposition, one would have thought. To make the point, the Times profiled a family in suburban Sacramento with four kids. The father is a state worker who is now furloughed twice a month, while the mother stays at home with their two sets of twins (aged 7 and 20 months respectively.) Mom has adjusted by shopping...

"Safety" has now become the latest excuse for a college trying to duck responsibility for childcare. Ogeechee Technical College president Dawn Cartee announced the closure of the campus childcare center in Statesboro, GA, arguing that colleges are dangerous places for small kids. In a March 28 letter to parents, according to an article in The Statesboro Herald, Cartee wrote: